endlesschatter

This is a kinda interesting story from St Louis, shows how stupid some people are and how desperate some lawyers are…

Suit claims private guard failed to thwart Kirkwood council shooting – STLtoday.com

Suit claims private guard failed to thwart Kirkwood council shooting
By Heather Ratcliffe
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
02/05/2010

KIRKWOOD — A lawsuit faults an unarmed private security officer for allowing Charles “Cookie” Thornton into a Kirkwood City Council meeting the night he fatally shot six people and was killed by police.

“This wasn’t some fellow that was unknown to the city of Kirkwood,” said Chet Pleban, attorney for the daughter of Constance Karr, a council member and mayoral candidate slain that night.

“This was a fellow who had an extremely adversarial history with the city and he’s permitted to walk into the city building without restriction and without any sort of scrutiny whatsoever, carrying a sign and two guns after shots were heard in the parking lot.”

I guess this means if a person goes to a city counsel meeting and voices opposition, then they should barred from their rights to attend meetings.

A police report says the private officer, Ronald L. Whitehead, saw Thornton arrive outside City Hall the night of Feb. 7, 2008, and went upstairs to the meeting chamber to alert police Officer Thomas Ballman, who was providing security inside. The report says Ballman remained seated.

It also says that Whitehead returned to the lobby by the time Thornton passed him on the way to the chamber. Ballman would be among those Thornton killed.

The suit, filed Jan. 29 in St. Louis County Circuit Court, seeks in excess of $25,000 from Whitehead and his employer, Whelan Security.

Whitehead could not be reached Thursday for comment. Whelan’s president, Greg Twardowski, issued a statement saying that neither the company nor its employee was responsible for the loss of life. “While our continued condolences go out to the victims and their families … the claims asserted against us will be vigorously defended, and we are confident that they will be found to lack merit,” he wrote.

City officials had no comment about the lawsuit.

Pleban said that Thornton was carrying a large cardboard sign, so Whitehead should have known he intended to disrupt the meeting.

Unknown to those in City Hall, Thornton had shot and killed police Sgt. William Biggs outside. Inside, he killed Karr, Ballman, Public Works Director Ken Yost and Councilman Mike Lynch outright and wounded Mayor Mike Swoboda, who died months later.

Kirkwood officials hired Whalen several years earlier to provide one guard at two council meetings a month, said Beth Von Behren, a city spokeswoman. Although details of the contract with Whelan were not immediately available, the city spends about $3,400 a year for the service, Behren said.

Thornton had previously disrupted meetings to draw attention to claims the city had mistreated him over ordinance violations and other issues.

I guess there the person pushing for this lawsuit wished for the unarmed guard to have jumped in front of a bullet and maybe there would have been one less for him to use elsewhere…? Are they suing the family of the armed guard “Ballman” for not doing his job? How about the other dead police sargents family outside? Are they being sued… I mean they let the gun wielding person past them.

February 5th, 2010 | Tags: death, Open, stupid people | Category: Government and Politics | Leave a comment

This week’s cover: Patrick Swayze, 1952-2009 | EW.com

Though he was nominated for three golden Globes over the course of his 30-year career, Patrick Swayze measured his success by lives touched, not money made or awards won. “No matter what opinion Hollywood has of you,” Swayze once told Entertainment Weekly, “the fans never forget you if you never forget them.”

On September 14, at the age of 57, Swayze died after an extraordinarily brave and dignified 20-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Swayze had initially responded well to treatment, and spent four months working 12-hour days on the A&E undercover drama The Beast while undergoing chemotherapy. He refused to take medication that might hinder what would become his final onscreen performance – even though the pain became intense. After he passed away, tributes have poured in from friends and colleagues. “Patrick was a rare and beautiful combination of raw masculinity and amazing grace,” recalled his Dirty Dancing costar Jennifer Grey.

The first hints of Swayze’s stardom emerged in his 1987 breakout film, Dirty Dancing. After that film’s success, Swayze was offered everything from a cologne deal to a record contract. But he was determined not to be pigeonholed as a gyrating boy toy. He sought cover in action films that let him run in what he called “crazy Swayze adrenaline-junkie mode.” The movies that he chose appealed to the side of him that was a self-proclaimed “searcher.” To Swayze, Road House showcased the beauty of martial arts via a bouncer with a philosophy degree from New York University.

September 18th, 2009 | Tags: death, Entertainment, Movies, Open | Category: Entertainment, Open | Leave a comment

Walter Cronkite – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–81). During the heyday of CBS News in the 1970s and 1980s, he was often cited in viewer opinion polls as “the most trusted man in America” because of his professional experience and kindly demeanor. Cronkite died on July 17, 2009 at the age of 92 from cerebrovascular disease.

Cronkite was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, the son of Helen Lena (née Fritsche) and Dr. Walter Leland Cronkite, a dentist. He had remote Dutch ancestry on his father’s side, the family surname originally being Krankheyt.

Cronkite lived in Kansas City, Missouri until he was ten, when his family moved to Houston, Texas.  He attended junior high school at Lanier Junior High School (now Lanier Middle School) and high school at San Jacinto High School where he edited the high school newspaper.  He was a member of the Boy Scouts. He attended college at The University of Texas at Austin, where he worked on The Daily Texan, and became a member of the Nu chapter of the Chi Phi Fraternity.  He also was a member of the Houston chapter of DeMolay, a Masonic fraternal organization for boys. It was while attending the University of Texas that Cronkite had his first taste of performance appearing in a play with fellow students Eli Wallach and Ann Sheridan.

Career

He dropped out of college in his junior year in 1935 after starting a series of newspaper reporting jobs covering news and sports.  He entered broadcasting as a radio announcer for WKY in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In 1936, he met his future wife Mary Elizabeth Maxwell (known by her nickname “Betsy”) while working as the sports announcer for KCMO (AM) in Kansas City, Missouri.  His broadcast name was “Walter Wilcox”.  He would explain later that radio stations at the time did not want people to use their real names for fear of taking their listeners with them if they left. In Kansas City, he joined the United Press in 1937.  He became one of the top American reporters in World War II, covering battles in North Africa and Europe.  He was one of eight journalists selected by the U.S. Army Air Forces to fly bombing raids over Germany in a B-17 Flying Fortress.  He also landed in a glider with the 101st Airborne in Operation Market-Garden and covered the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he covered the Nuremberg trials, and served as the United Press main reporter in Moscow for two years.

The CBS Evening News

Cronkite succeeded Douglas Edwards as anchorman of the CBS Evening News on April 16, 1962, a job in which he became an American icon.  The program expanded from 15 to 30 minutes on September 2, 1963, making Cronkite the anchor of American network television’s first nightly half-hour news program.

In 1969, with Apollo 11, and later with Apollo 13, Cronkite received the best ratings and made CBS the most-watched television network for the missions.

In 1970, Walter Cronkite received a “Freedom of the Press” George Polk Award. That same year, the CBS Evening News finally dominated the American TV news viewing audience, when Huntley retired. Although NBC finally settled on the skilled and well-respected broadcast journalist John Chancellor, Cronkite proved to be more popular and continued to be top-rated until his retirement in 1981.  That year, President Jimmy Carter awarded Cronkite the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

One of Cronkite’s trademarks was ending the CBS Evening News with the phrase, “…And that’s the way it is:”, followed by the date (keeping to standards of objective journalism, he omitted this phrase on nights when he ended the newscast with opinion or commentary).  Beginning with January 16, 1980, Day 50 of the Iran hostage crisis, Cronkite added the length of the hostages’ captivity to the show’s closing to remind the audience of the unresolved situation, ending only on Day 444, January 20, 1981.  

Cronkite trained himself to speak at a rate of 124 words per minute in his newscasts, so that viewers could clearly understand him. In contrast, Americans average about 165 words per minute, and fast, difficult-to-understand talkers speak close to 200 words per minute.  Currently, Walter Cronkite’s voice can be heard announcing CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric at the beginning of the news broadcast, and at Retirement Living TV’s Daily Cafe.

Kennedy assassination
Cronkite is vividly remembered by many Americans for breaking the news of the death of President Kennedy on Friday, November 22, 1963. Cronkite had been standing at the United Press International wire machine in the CBS newsroom as the bulletin of the President’s shooting broke and clamored to get on the air to break the news. However, cameras were not ready for use and Cronkite would be forced to break the news without them while one warmed up.

At 1:40 PM, A “CBS News Bulletin” bumper slide broke into the live broadcast of As the World Turns (ATWT). Over the slide Cronkite began reading:

“Here is a bulletin from CBS News. In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting.”

A second bulletin arrived as Cronkite was reading the first one, which detailed the severity of President Kennedy’s wounds:

“More details just arrived. These details about the same as previously…President Kennedy shot today just as his motorcade left downtown Dallas. Mrs. Kennedy jumped up and grabbed Mr. Kennedy, she called “Oh no!,” the motorcade sped on. United Press [International] says that the wounds for President Kennedy perhaps could be fatal. Repeating, a bulletin from CBS News: President Kennedy has been shot by a would-be assassin in Dallas, Texas. Stay tuned to CBS News for further details.”

Just before the bulletin cut out, a CBS News staffer was heard saying “Connally too,” apparently having just heard the news that Texas Governor John Connally had also been shot while riding in the Presidential limousine with his wife Nellie and Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy.

“Here is a bulletin from CBS News. Further details on an assassination attempt against President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. President Kennedy was shot as he drove from Dallas Airport to downtown Dallas; Governor Connally of Texas, in the car with him, was also shot. It is reported that three bullets rang out. A Secret Service man has been…was heard to shout from the car, “He’s dead.” Whether he referred to President Kennedy or not is not yet known. The President, cradled in the arms of his wife Mrs. Kennedy, was carried to an ambulance and the car rushed to Parkland Hospital outside Dallas, the President was taken to an emergency room in the hospital. Other White House officials were in doubt in the corridors of the hospital as to the condition of President Kennedy. Repeating this bulletin: President Kennedy shot while driving in an open car from the airport in Dallas, Texas, to downtown Dallas.”

Cronkite later reported that the priest (Father Oscar Huber) called in to perform the Last Rites to the President did not believe that he was dead when he performed them, seeming to contradict what Barker and Rather had been reporting (and contrary to what Huber had told other reporters on the scene, as he had said Kennedy was dead when he entered the room to perform the Last Rites and had to pull back a sheet covering his body to perform them). Ten minutes later he received a report that the two priests who were with Kennedy were now saying that he was dead, declaring that it was as close to official as they could get. However, Cronkite continued to stress that there was no official confirmation of the death of Kennedy from the hospital (although his words seemed to indicate that this was the most likely outcome).

Vietnam War
Cronkite reported on location during the Vietnam War.

Following Cronkite’s editorial report during the Tet Offensive that the Vietnam War was unwinnable, President Lyndon Johnson is reported to have said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”[20]

During the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Cronkite was anchoring the CBS network coverage as violence and protests occurred outside the convention, as well as scuffles inside the convention hall. When Dan Rather was punched to the floor (on camera) by security personnel, Cronkite commented, “I think we’ve got a bunch of thugs here, Dan.”

July 17th, 2009 | Tags: death, Entertainment, Open | Category: Featured, Open | Leave a comment

I don’t know if I should lead this off as… “He’s at it again…” or “He’s still at it…” but which ever line it would have been the bottom line is that good ol’ Rev Al Sharpton is out and about trying to push his old ragged race card again. It really is kinda sad (and tiresome for the millions of us that hear his raciest comments) that all he has in life is a obsession to try and find anything he can twist into a dig against black people.
Uncle Al’s latest tirade is over a cartoon saying a monkey wrote the stimulus bill.

New York Post Chimp Cartoon Compares Stimulus Author To Dead Primate

“The cartoon in today’s New York Post is troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys. One has to question whether the cartoonist is making a less than casual reference to this when in the cartoon they have police saying after shooting a chimpanzee that “Now they will have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill.”

“Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?”

The New York Times (who printed the cartoon) at least had the intelligence not to have been intimidated by the racist loudmouth. Amazing enough the comments surrounding the cartoon are as bias as the image itself. Black responders jump on the racist bandwagon even to the point of saying the cartoon was done in black and white obviously that even being a issue…

Beau Friedlander: The New York Post Jumps the Shark
The New York Post today ran a cartoon that splashed classic dog-whistle racism (in black and white no less).

Reena Walker:
Please join our Boycott the New York Post Group on Facebook. We have a partial list of advertisers that we will be boycotting if they continue to sponsor this racist rag, The New York Post. The history of this paper has been incendiary and racist and this is the last straw. This goes beyond Sharpton and Obama. This is a perpetuated insulting stereotypical image of black people and the police shooting them down in the street has always been a position that the NY Post has stood in justification of. The fact that the stimulus bill was signed by a black man clearly shows the racial connotation. If one knows anything about the history of negative stereotypical images in this country then one could not help but immediately see the provocation here. The NY Post can no longer be allowed to get away with this.

What a sad world to live in. I guess even me thinking that the idiots that pull the race card are racist is racist, just shows how far those that want to whine for attention can get the attention when they want to call a heart a spade.

Even better the one or two people that made comments that the cartoon didn’t mean anything racist got hammered for obviously being so racist they could see the cartoon was racist! lol

February 21st, 2009 | Tags: idiots, Open, stupid people | Category: Entertainment, Open | Comments (1)

FOXNews.com – Convicted Ex-Border Agents Released From Prison Following Presidential Commutation – Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean have been released from federal prison after serving more than two years in solitary confinement for the non-fatal shooting of a Mexican drug smuggler.

President Bush commuted the sentences of the two border guards Jan. 19, and his order will go into effect on March 20. The pair will serve out the remaining month of their sentences in home confinement in El Paso, Texas.

Ramos’ wife Monica was waiting at the federal penitentiary in Phoenix for her husband’s release and told FOXNews.com she was overjoyed to be reunited with her husband.

“I can tell you it’s a great day for me. We’ve been anticipating this for quite a while now but seeing him walk through those doors today was just surreal,” she said. He is expected to land in El Paso at 2:30 p.m. EST.

February 18th, 2009 | Tags: Open, politics | Category: Government and Politics, Open | Leave a comment

Just saying that it’s “That time of year again…” just doesn’t create the proper setting for what goes on in this reality type show. 16 new contestants will be competing for the ability to say they have basically made it through a chefs “Shellback Initiation”. First to leave is going to be interesting… nobody likes to go out first.
FOX Broadcasting Company: Hell’s Kitchen

World-renowned chef Gordon Ramsay is back for a fifth course of the sizzling unscripted series HELL’S KITCHEN. The show follows wannabe chefs as they slice and dice their way through each episode, vying for Ramsay’s attention in hopes of winning a life-changing culinary prize.

The intensity heats up each week as the ambitious hopefuls try to prove they have what it takes. Ramsay weeds out the bad apples, keeping only those who possess the right combination of ingredients to achieve success. Both his sharp tongue and the contestants’ inexperience are often a recipe for disaster in this pressure-cooker environment. Only one thing is certain: If the contestants can’t stand the heat, they’ll have to get out of HELL’S KITCHEN.

Season Four of HELL’S KITCHEN, in which Christina Machamer won the coveted title a senior chef position at Gordon Ramsay at The London West Hollywood, finished as the highest-rated season in the show’s history.

HELL’S KITCHEN is a Granada America production in association with A. Smith & Co. Arthur Smith and Kent Weed serve as executive producers.

February 1st, 2009 | Tags: Entertainment, Food, Open, tv shows | Category: Cooking and such, Entertainment | Leave a comment

This is a pretty good read, but I do have a couple of questions.
First this is being reported from Kansas City (via St Louis). I don’t know if it was in Kansas Cities news papers or not but it wasn’t in Springfields papers and while that is interesting in it’s own right… wasn’t it interesting that a block of road was suddenly renamed after Rosa Parks? I mean to be realistic I thought it was kinda funny at first when I read that, but upon thinking about it for a second, I realized that someone went out of their way to push this regulation through to purposely discredit a legal organization and the city and state when along with it.
I think maybe a “Jim Crow Highway” needs to be instituted… maybe the group cleaning up the trash near Springfield will push for that name change.

01/22/2009 – Missouri neo-Nazi group adopts a highway – STLtoday.com

Missouri neo-Nazi group adopts a highway
By Margaret Stafford
ASSOCIATED PRESS
01/22/2009

KANSAS CITY, Mo. –A neo-Nazi group has adopted a half-mile section of highway in Springfield as part of the state’s litter prevention program.

The Springfield unit of the National Socialist Movement has committed to cleaning up trash along the section of Highway 160 near the city limits in west Springfield.

Two signs noting the group’s membership in the Adopt-A-Highway program went up last October but drew attention only recently when the group picked up litter as part of a gathering in Springfield.

The state says it had no way to reject the group’s application. A 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling arising from a similar effort by the Ku Klux Klan says membership in the Adopt-A-Highway program can’t be denied because of a group’s political beliefs.

“It’s a First Amendment thing, and we can’t discriminate as long as they pick up the trash,” said Bob Edwards, a spokesman for the transportation department’s office in Springfield.

The NSM Springfield unit decided to take part in the highway project because it wants to clean up the community, said Ariana Glass, a 16-year-old member of the youth division of the group.

“We wanted to prove that we’re not out here just to have fun, we want to make the community look good,” Glass said.

The group heard both honks of support and jeers when about 30 members and supporters picked up trash last Saturday. Greene County sheriff’s deputies ticketed one man who group members say became threatening but there were no other incidents, she said.

“As far as I could see we got as much support and honks, people waving,” Glass said.

Edwards said his department had received only one phone call asking why the group was allowed to adopt the highway. Louise Whall, spokeswoman for the city of Springfield, was not aware of the group’s action until contacted by the AP, but said the city had no jurisdiction because it’s a state program.

Members of the highway cleanup program are required to clean up trash at least four times a year. Edwards said about 600 groups pick up trash in the 12 counties surrounding Springfield.

In the early 2000s, Missouri went to the U.S. Supreme Court to fight efforts by the Ku Klux Klan to clean sections of state highways.

At the time, the state could reject applications for the Adopt-A-Highway program from groups that denied membership based on race or had a history of violence.

The Klan challenged those regulations and in 2000 the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the prohibitions.

The department adopted new highway cleanup rules, but a federal judge again ruled for the Klan in October 2003, saying the revised rules weren’t substantially different than those previously struck down.

The state appealed, but was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in January 2005.

In general, the state can deny an organization’s application only if it has members who have been convicted of violent criminal activity within the past 10 years.

After the state dropped the Klan from cleaning up a section of Interstate 55 near St. Louis in 2001 for failing to pick up trash, the stretch of highway was renamed the “Rosa Parks Highway” in honor of the black woman arrested in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala.

It also makes me wonder if the Klan did or didn’t pick up on the area they were suppose to. I mean if I didn’t like a group and that group was listed as the people whom were to pick up trash in a specif area… would I be too far off to give them some work?

———————
It turns out the Springfield paper (at least online) has a little article on the neo-Nazi’s of course it came a day later as if to say “we better print something if others know about it…”

January 24th, 2009 | Tags: Government and Politics, Open, stupid people | Category: Open | Leave a comment

I was sent the following and thought it pretty interesting…
This was printed in the Hays Kansas Daily News;
I think it’s pretty well says it all.

Dear Barack Obama:
I grew to like you over the last year. I’ve always thought of you as dangerously naive at best. Eloquent, gifted, genuine, yes. But dangerously naive at best. I couldn’t vote for you — but not because of your funny name or your lunatic pastor. I couldn’t vote for you because you say we should raise taxes (even on the rich, who I’m convinced already pay too much), and because you say we should abandon Iraq (which I’m convinced would be surrendering a war we must win), and because you don’t respect the Second Amendment (which I’m convinced should disqualify any politician from any office).
Still, I’ve liked your message of unity and your ability to inspire. And, since your rise I’ve hunted, quite frantically, for young conservative leaders with your talent. (To my relief, I found Bobby Jindal.) And I’ve long said if you beat Hillary Clinton, you will have done your country a tremendous service. But anymore I’m having a harder and harder time rooting for you.
First came your wife’s comment about being proud of America for the first time — conveniently, right after you started winning primaries. Then came your own words about your grandmother, who is just a “typical white person” — a racist, or at least someone with racist tendencies. (I’m a “typical white person,” I suppose, and I’m no racist. In fact, little makes me angrier than when it’s insinuated I am.) Sometimes people say things they don’t really mean. But this is a pattern. Last week, we heard your comments about small-town America. Someone at a San Francisco fundraiser asked you why it’s so hard for Democrats to win in rural areas. You said: “You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them … So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them …” Is that a minority?
HEY CLETUS, GET THE GUN! (If only we had a job to go to, some time in the last 25 years …)
Here’s a thought: Maybe gun rights voters know gun control laws kill people and steal freedom.
Here’s a thought: Maybe some of us have moral objections to an immigration system that forces rule-followers to wait decades for legal status, and rewards border-violators with amnesty.
Here’s a thought: Maybe some Americans cling to their church because their pastor is a nice person, because they find love there, because there they have something they can believe in.
Here’s a thought: Maybe, just maybe, us simpletons in small towns find it harder to be bigoted than all o’ y’all cityfolk. Maybe, in small towns, where everybody knows your name — and how hard you work, if you pay your taxes, how well you treat your neighbors, how often you volunteer in the community, and whether or not you’re a good parent — people see the content of your character, so they don’t give a hoot about the color of your skin. (But I grew up in a small town where about a third of the population is of a different race than me. What do I know?)
And here’s my favorite thought of all: Maybe small-town folks are — really — capable of thinking. All on our own.
You’re wrong about why small-town Americans don’t vote for Democrats.
We don’t vote for Democrats because we’re self-reliant so we don’t like the government trying to “solve” everything for us. And because you tell your rich friends in San Francisco that we’re dumb. And because, each election, whichever one of you is running for president traipses all over the country telling us you have all the answers, that you’re the one on our side, that you understand and respect our way of life.
But each time, a little bit here and there slips out — and by the end of the campaign, we can tell what you think about us. And we manage to learn who you really are. And we see you’re just a horse’s ass.

Will Manly is a reporter for The Hays Daily News and The Stir. will@thestironline.com

May 14th, 2008 | Tags: Open, stupid people | Category: Open | Comments (7)

Second cutting done on the Hawk RBI. These were completed on Christmas Day and some tissue paper was used for the background on this one.

I’m not sure if I like the color or not… the black background gives contrast seems to make the wood stand out, at least to me.

December 30th, 2007 | Tags: hobbies, Open, scrollsaw | Category: Open | Leave a comment